This was one of those rare trips where we not only purchased tickets for our flight, but we flew on a different airline. Delta doesn't fly to Curacao, so we flew American. To be honest, it is probably a good thing Delta doesn't fly to Curacao, because if they did, I would want to go there every month. Or every time there were open seats. I'd probably want to buy a house there. Can you tell we love Curacao? A brief word about the house we rented. It had this lovely pool. It had an amazingly lush backyard with a play set for the kids. It had really good reviews on VRBO. Well, they must delete the bad reviews, because it was not what we expected. But I blame myself, really. When they said "air conditioned bedrooms" I should have known that meant only in the bedrooms.
But I can deal with a lack of air conditioning, because its the Caribbean! There's a nice breeze! True. But the house didn't have actual windows, just plantation shutters with lots of gaps that let in all the mosquitos along with breeze. Anne and I were so miserable. We couldn't even sit out by that lovely pool because there were soooo many mosquitoes. When we planned this vacation we imagined ourselves putting the kids to bed and having a glass of wine outside. I could only do it when wearing long pants and long sleeves, and then they bit my face! Never again!
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If you are new to my trip reports, WELCOME! Also, you should know that sometimes we have a trip planned for months, then Rob gets his schedule and we decide to go on the vacation a little early (like in 2019 when we added 2 days to our Hawaii trip at the last minute). The same was true in January of 2020 when we were all set to go to Curacao. The original plan was to meet up with our traveling companions in Miami for 1 night before flying to Curacao. Well... it was cold. And Rob had the time off. We decided to add a night in one of our favorite places on Earth, Key Largo!! (Read about a previous trip to Key Largo here). So the new plan was to fly to Fort Lauderdale, rent a car, drive to Key Largo, spend a day there, drive back to Miami to meet our friends, then fly out the next day to Curacao. Whew. The day we arrived we spent most of our time in the pool and hot tub, then we had dinner at The Key Largo Conch House. We have only been to the Keys in the January/February time frame and this place is always empty, although I've heard it can have a long wait during the season. The next day we lounged around the hotel for a bit and then went to John Pennecamp State Park. Oh, and we have this picture of Anne from a previous stay at the hotel where she is next to a baby palm tree. We tried to recreate it! For such an extremely short stay, we could only hit up 2 of our favorite restaurants in Key Largo. Dinner at the conch house, and lunch at the Key Largo Fishery before we drove to Miami. And then it was time to drive to Miami, where we were staying at the Sheraton by the airport and meeting up with our friends! Before I begin to tell you about an amazing time we had on our favorite Caribbean Island, Curaçao, I have to say how hard this is to write. I remember sitting in our vacation rental home, chatting casually with the other 3 adults about the Corona Virus while the 4 kids played in the shade of palm trees. We had no idea how our lives were about to be flipped upside down. So I sat on this trip report for a very long time. And even now, a year later, it is hard to think about how life was then and how it is now.
Why write about it now? Well, it has been a YEAR since we went on the trip! So besides being overdue, I see this trip report as a way to relive and remember this AMAZING time. Plus, for the first time in 7 years, we will not be taking a mid-winter January/February vacation. And it is cold here in Kentucky, so this report is a way to take my mind somewhere warm. Now, on to the trip! This would be our second time visiting Curacao. If you aren't familiar with our first trip, you can read all about it here. The kids were 3 and adorable on that trip! Here is the basic rundown of our plan for our 2020 trip. (For some background of the island, check out my 2017 pre-trip report). Who is going? This time, we would be traveling with our good friends, the Bush Family! Ashley and Brandon flew the KC-135 with Rob at Grissom and now Brandon flies for Delta. Ashley is still in the AF Reserve, but she is currently at Scott Air Force Base (along with Rob, but she does a different job) and she is also a stay-at-home mom to Becket and Tucker, two loving and very active little boys. When? We flew down to the island at the end of January 2020 and we were back in the beginning of February. That gave us a week on the island. It is always so nice to escape the dreary midwestern winter and get a dose of tropical sun! Where? The daily flight to Curaçao from Miami leaves around noon. Since flights from Indianapolis (for the Bushes) and Cincinnati (for us) arrive later than that, we all arrived a night early and stayed near the Miami Airport. Once on the island, we rented a house in an area of the island called Jan Theil and planned to stay there 7 nights. We chose the house because it had a pool and shallow baby pool, plus a playground in the backyard. We would then fly back to Miami for a night before returning home. What's the plan? There was no agenda planned for this trip! We knew we wanted to eat at the Iguana Cafe at least once and we knew we wanted a day at Mambo Beach, but other than that it was wide open! Read about Day 4 here. Our final park day was 50 percent awesome, 50 percent aggravating. There aren't many pictures because I was not in a photo taking mood! But here is a recap. The plan was to be at California Adventure when it opened, ride Soarin' and then explore the Pixar Pier area. The first part of the day went according to plan, we got fast passes for Soarin' and went to ride Radiator Springs Racers since the stand-by line was relatively short. RSR was fun, although we lost again. Then it was time for our fast passes, so we walked over and rode Soarin', which is the same as the one in EPCOT but still a favorite. After that, we headed to Pixar Pier. This is an area of California Adventure that is themed to the Pixar movies and looks like an old-fashioned boardwalk carnival. They have a lot of rides for little kids, a Ferris wheel, a roller coaster (which A&R were not tall enough for), and the best ride ever, Toy Story Midway Mania. Our plan was to let Anne and Ryan ride some of the carnival rides while Rob went to get fast passes for Toy Story. He was able to do his side of the plan, but it was a rather windy day, so most of the kiddie rides were closed. We were only able to ride 1 of the 4, Jumpin' Jellyfish. Fast Passes in hand, we met Rob outside the Inside Out Emotional Whirl-Wind. The kids and I stood in this really long line, the ride was ok, but offered great views of the park. When we got off, Rob realized he hadn't taken his reflux medication that morning, so he needed to go back to the room and get it. I took the kids to the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail while he did that. The Redwood Creek Challenge Trail is a great area to let kids run around and burn off their energy. There are climbing nets, zip lines, and slides, plus plenty of sidewalks where they can just run and not worry about people. It was 20 minutes well spent waiting for Daddy. Then I noticed there was no line for The Little Mermaid- Ariel's Undersea Adventure. I texted Rob that we would meet him outside the ride and we headed over. The Little Mermaid ride is exactly the same as the one in Florida, cute but not a headline attraction. It was great to ride it with no line and get out of the cold wind for a few minutes. Finally we met up with Rob and headed to ride the Pixar Pal-A-Round. This is the giant Pixar themed Ferris wheel that is the park's icon. The ride has 2 vehicle types, non-moving, which are typical Ferris wheel cars; and moving cars, which slide around on a round track as the wheel moves. The Schneiders tend towards motion sickness, so of course we rode the non-moving cars. Even that is almost too much for me. I hate Ferris wheels, but the kids love them so I soldiered on like a good mother. The wait for the ride was about 30 minutes, but the churros made that pass quickly. ;) When we got off the ride, I noticed a serious up tick in the crowd level in the pier area. I checked the app and both the Incredicoaster and the Toy Story ride were down. That left a lot of people with nothing to ride! We thought we would just grab lunch and hope that the ride was back on line by the time of our Fast Passes. Apparently every one else had the same idea. I used the app to do mobile ordering for lunch, but there was no where to sit! We started out eating on top of a trash can then we saw some people leave and swooped in on their table. Turns out they were leaving because the sun was blinding them. The hot dogs staved off the hanger, but it wasn't a very magical day. Luck was on our side and Toy Story was up just in time for our Fast Passes. This ride is so much fun. You use a little blast cannon to play these midway style games. Everything is digital and the ride keeps track of your score. I'm never very good but I still love it! Ride accomplished, we were kinda done. It was only 12:30, but it felt like we were just pushing a boulder up a hill. The park was crowded, rides kept going down, so there was no where for people to go. We had ridden what we could and the only rides we wanted to ride again all had lines of over an hour. I checked the app and the same thing was true over in the Magic Kingdom. Thus ended our time in the California parks! It kinda ended on a low note, but that doesn't damper our overall opinion of Disneyland. We went back to the hotel to swim, but after about an hour of swimming there was a code brown at the water slides, which meant everyone was in the other pool, which then felt over crowded. Sigh. I think it's time to pack up this vacation and head home! Read about Day 3 here. Our original plan for Day 4 was to arrive at Disney's California Adventure when it opened at 8am, spend the first half of the day there, then spend the evening at the hotel. But by this point I had caught on the the Early Morning Magic Hour being so important. Since we were up anyway, we spent from 7am to 8am at the Magic Kingdom riding some of the things missed the day before. What we were able to ride:
We were still able to make it into line before California Adventure opened at 8am. Score! This is a brand new park for us, with a completely different layout. Even with all my pre-trip studying, it took awhile for me to get my bearings. Luckily we were able to follow the crowd to Carsland, where we grabbed a FastPass for Radiator Springs Racers. Here's how we spent our morning:
After a brief snack in Carsland, we headed over to the Animation Courtyard. This is a cool building where you can partake in 3 different attractions. Plus, there was a comfy lobby area where Rob could sit.
Our final ride of the day was the Monsters Inc. ride. This is a dark ride that takes you through the Monsters Inc. movie. It was ok. We saw Spiderman greeting fans outside and Ryan didn't want to get in line to meet him. It about broke my heart, since he was quite Spiderman obsessed just a few years ago. I was able to drown my sorrows in a churro. Mmm, churros. The funny thing is on the first day, we got one churro and split it. On the second day, we got two to share. By the third day, we were getting four churros and not sharing! I honestly don't know if we will ever go to Disneyland again and the only thing I will truly miss is the churros. At this point we asked the kids what they wanted to do and they said swim in the pool, so we had a poolside lunch. Actually, I think I left the kids in the pool with Rob and I went to shop in Downtown Disney. It was so convenient! Believe it or not, we went totally un-Schneider and went back into the Magic Kingdom for the evening. What!?! We were meeting up with our California friend, Matt. It was so great to be able to spend more time with him, and he patiently listened to my kids chatter for an hour while we stood in line for Peter Pan. Then he humored them when they asked him to ride with them. What a great guy! It was the longest day of our lives! Two parks, both at opening. Being in a park after dark. Craziness! Good thing we had a light day planned for our final day! Continue reading about our adventure here.
Read about Day 2 here. We actually did a lot on this day, but the bulk of our time was spent in the new Star Wars Galaxy's Edge section of the Magic Kingdom. In Florida, this new land is in Hollywood Studios, and that makes more sense than having it in the Magic Kingdom. In California, it makes more sense to put it in their California Adventure park, but they have serious real estate issues. So into the Magic Kingdom it went. Our plan was to rope drop the park (get there before it opened) and position ourselves to sprint to Star Wars land. It wasn't a magic morning, so we were in place at 7:30am and in the park waiting for the 8am park opening. Our objective was to ride Millennium Falcon Smuggler's Run. Galaxy's Edge (aka Star Wars Land) is set on the fictional planet of Batuu. The details are over the top amazing. You really and truly do leave the park behind and enter another place. For example, the cast members will say "bright suns!" instead of "hello" because that's what they do. I've heard they say "rising moons" at night, but we were only there during the day. Another thing I read before I went and was curious about was the lack of music. Each land in Disneyland has its own soundtrack that sets the tone for that land. On Batuu, there is no music, just ambient noise. Some people say it sounds "sterile" and that something is missing. Not for this family! We thought the sounds of various space craft buzzing overhead, or the rumbling from the Millennium Falcon etc really made us feel like we were on the planet and not just in another land at Disney. When we joined the queue for Smuggler's Run, the quoted time was 45 minutes. Not bad! These photos were all from the queue. You wind your way through a docking bay? Cargo bay? I forget. Anyway, there is so much to look at, you hardly feel like you are waiting at all. And the whole time they are paging people to various places, and making announcements like you would expect to hear in a space port. We loved it. Then you make it to the pre-show. This guy, forgot his name, needs you to go on a smuggling run for the resistance. Once you know what you are doing, you board the Millennium Falcon and are assigned a job for the mission. There are 6 jobs, which means a family of 4 will be assigned 2 other crew members. This is an issue, in my opinion, because the 4 jobs are NOT equal. There are 2 pilots, 2 gunners, and 2 engineers. Rob and Ryan were assigned pilot, Anne and I were the gunners, and then 2 very nice gentleman were assigned to be our engineers. I felt really bad for these guys, who appeared to be a father and son. They had stood in line for 45 minutes, just like us, then they were stuck being a job that essentially pushes 1 button towards the end. Had I known this when we were assigned the jobs, I would have made Ryan give up his pilot slot and I would have given the other guy my gunner job. Also, I love my son, but a 7 year old cannot fly the Millennium Falcon. One pilot controls up and down, the other controls left and right. It's a tough way to fly, and Ryan wasn't up to the task (but he had a fabulous time). Anne and I were pretty good gunners, if I do say so myself. Those complaints aside, the ride is FANTASTIC. Rob usually gets sick on motion simulators, but since he was a pilot and in control of the movement, he was fine. Our adrenaline was pumping from the minute the ship took off. So much fun! Then we exited the ride, and it was hilarious. In true Disney fashion, the theming continues into the exit, and the hallway lights reflect how you did. Since our co-pilot wasn't that great, the lights were flashing and some of them were out. A cast member warned us that we might not be allowed to take the Falcon out again if we can't take better care of her (wink, wink). Back in October when we visited, Smuggler's Run was the only ride open. Now Rise of the Resistance is also open. Guess we need to plan for another trip! Ride accomplished, we wandered around the land a bit. Don't worry, this wasn't our only visit to Batuu. We headed back to Earth from Batuu at 9am and the park was already really crowded. So much for low crowds in October! I think part of what makes the California parks feel so crowded is that they occupy less acreage than the Florida parks. It might have been the same amount of people, but there was less land for them to spread out on. Here's what we rode that morning:
Another thing that makes California seem more crowded is the lines. Wait, what? Since the weather is better in Southern California, most of the queues are outdoors, while the Florida queues are inside, air conditioned, and hidden. I think psychologically speaking, seeing all the lines makes it feel more crowded. It was now time for lunch. We decided on the French Market and it was just ok. I had a shrimp po' boy and that is all I remember. Wait, I do remember they had this fantastic looking cake that we passed on and I wish we had tried it. Life is short, eat the cake. After lunch we rode a few more rides.
Now it was time to return to Batuu for a visit to Oga's Cantina. If you've ever wished you could have a drink at the Mos Eisley, you need to book a trip to the world and visit Oga's Cantina. It isn't an exact replica of the movie, because you are on Batuu and not Tatooine. But the vibe is the same. Plus, this is the only place in the Magic Kingdom you can have an adult beverage. At the time of our visit, you could only get in with a reservation and I booked ours 2 weeks out. Oga's offers some local beers, fantastic fantasy cocktails, and blue milk. Yup, just like Luke drinks. Now for our drink reviews. Rob got a beer because he wanted to check in a beer on UnTapped. You get cool points or something for every beer you check in, and this is the only place in the Magic Kingdom you can drink, so this was a unique check in. The blue milk was... interesting. You can also get it at a stand outside of Oga's Cantina. It tasted like tropical, fruity milk, which is just an odd combination. My kids drank it all and our waiter said they were the only ones he had ever seen finish it. The cookie thing sitting on top was good. My Yub Nub was really good. It is a mix of rums, citrus juices, and passion fruit seeds. I wasn't going to order it, because it is quite pricy, but you get to keep this awesome Endor themed tiki glass. I'm glad Rob talked me into it, because I enjoyed the drink and I have no regrets about my awesome souvenir glass. Overall we loved our visit to Oga's, but beware. They do not want you to stay long. As in, you have 45 minutes to order, drink and get out. They make this easier by not providing most people with seats. There are some banquet style seats around the room, but they only seat larger parties there, I think. That means the four of us were in standing room only. When kids have tired legs, this isn't fun. Understandably, they got a tad whiney. When our 45 minutes were up, we headed out to see more of the cool details. If this were an adults only trip, we would have spent hours just looking at things. Kids are slightly less patient. One cool thing we saw was the Droid Depot, where you can build a custom droid that is controlled by bluetooth. Next time we will budget for that, two of them would have cost as much as our cabana. Yikes!! Our Star Wars thirst slaked, we left Batuu and rode the Mark Twain Riverboat and Anne got to meet Princess Tiana. Our next stop was Tomorrowland where we stood in line for an hour to ride the Nemo Subs. Then we saw that everything had an hour wait and decided to head back to the hotel. It was 4pm and we had been in the park since a little before 8am. That is a record for us! On the way out, I bought our Schneider family traditional Mickey head rice crispy treats. Dinner that night was poolside, while the kids swam off their pent up energy. I'm not sure where the energy came from, I was exhausted! Continue reading about our adventure here.
Read about Day 1 here. A constant theme during this trip is going to be the time change and its effects on our kids. They are unapologetic morning people and they don't take well to change. As a result, on our second day in California, I was up, dressed and in search of coffee with Anne at 5:30am. Luckily, Starbucks is open at that time of the day. And the line was short! Bonus about being up and at 'em that early, you can easily identify other East Coasters. We had a lovely chat with people in line. One gentleman wistfully remembered the days when his kids were Anne's age and wanted to be with him and his wife. I hugged my Anne Girl and assured him that I was absolutely enjoying every minute of this age. Well caffeinated, we were ready to head into the park for some fun! And here is where I need to tell you about a big mistake I made. You see, in the weeks leading up to this trip, all of my Disney sources were talking about how uncrowded the parks were. And crowd predictors said we would face light crowds while we were there. Now, I know a light crowd at Disney is still a big crowd. But, there was a huge uptick in attendance while we were there and my plans did not take this into account. I also underestimated the value of early entry in California. My bad. For this day, the Magic Kingdom opened at 8am, but had Morning Magic Hour from 7am-8am. This means the park was open for an extra hour in the morning only for the people staying at the Disney owned hotels. Magic Morning is at a different park each day and is a huge benefit for hotel guests. My mistake was scheduling a first thing in the morning character breakfast at The Plaza Inn on Main Street. Now, the breakfast itself was fantastic and we saw a ton of rare characters. In fact, I think Disney just sees who shows up at work each day and then throws them into whatever costumes they have laying around. There was no rhyme or reason to who we saw. It was great! But if I could do this reservation over again, I would make it for a later time and treat it like brunch, That would have allowed us to take advantage of an almost empty park for Magic Morning. Instead, we stood in line more than we ever have in Florida. Rookie Mistake! After breakfast, our goal was to hit up Fantasyland, with an emphasis on rides that are different in Disneyland from Disney World. In Fantasyland rode the following:
We had lunch at the food court area in Mickey's Toontown. It was 100% blah. And hot, with very limited seating. After lunch we played a bit in Toontown. I'm honestly surprised this area hasn't been demolished and rebuilt as something different. The wait for the Roger Rabit ride was an hour (!) and since the kids don't know who he is, we decided to call it a day. We took the monorail from Tomorrowland and it delivered us to Downtown Disney right outside our hotel. Very cool! Once we were back in the hotel, we changed and went to the pool. We ran into Goofy in the lobby on our way out. That's the great thing about the Disneyland Hotel, the characters really do roam free. We had dinner with a dear friend who is out in California with the Air Force. He was kind enough to indulge me and we had dinner at Black Tap Burger and Shakes. The food was ok and the shake was yummy! The kids and I called it a night after dinner, while the men went to Ballast Point Brewery to partake in some adult beverages. I'm sure they enjoyed themselves, just look at Rob's face! Read about our travel day here. The kids and I woke up ridiculously early in our Anaheim hotel. The Schneider kids like to get up at 6am and they do not respect time zones. This means they woke up at 3am West Coast time, rested and raring to go. I kept them in bed until 4am, then kept them quiet until we could go downstairs for breakfast at 6am. Do I need to tell you this is my least favorite part of traveling? After breakfast, I found a show on the television about the Disney Parks decorating for Halloween. Since we were visiting the second week of October, this kept them occupied for an hour. While they were watching, I packed up the things we had used and by 9am we were ready to check out and meet Rob at the Disneyland Hotel. Let's get this party started! The approach to Disneyland is not like the approach to Disney World. The city of Anaheim really does surround the parks. There is no magical moment when you pass under the Welcome to Walt Disney World sign. The exit signs don't feature Mickey silhouettes. It is just, different. We did spy the iconic Disneyland Hotel sign, so that was a fun moment. As soon as our cab pulled up to the hotel, I felt the Disney magic, because the real secret to Disney is the people. Kind people helped me with the bags and directed me into the lobby for check-in. The landscaping was what I expected, The hotel might not be as grand as those in Florida, but it was 1960's kitschy Disney, which is what I was hoping for. I checked us in, but the room wasn't ready (I mean, it was about 10am, I wasn't expecting it to be!). Rob was on his way from the airport, so the kids and I left our bags with Bell Services and waited a few minutes. When Daddy arrived, to much fanfare and yelling from the kids who hadn't seen him in a week, we took a walk around the hotel and then went to Trader Sam's Grog grotto for lunch. This is such a cool place, but since we had the kids with us we sat outside and missed all the special effects. If you are lucky enough to be here without kids (or at the Polynesian in Florida) I highly recommend sitting inside and ordering the Hippomato-Mai-Tai. After lunch, we walked around Downtown Disney. Here in California, Downtown Disney is smaller, and connects the Disneyland Hotel and the Grand Californian Hotel to the parks. It was really cool, and helped you to feel like you were in the "Disney Bubble." It was FINALLY time for my big surprise for the family. A pool cabana!! Back in January of 2019, when we were at Aulani, we saw the cabanas and Rob made a passing comment about how nice it would be to get one. Well, the ones in Hawaii are around $500, so that was out of our budget. But when we started planning our Disneyland trip for October, which is the off season, the cabanas at the Disneyland Hotel were more affordable. So I booked us one and didn't tell the family. It was an awesome surprise. The cabana came with a fruit platter, which the kids ate before I could even take a picture of it. We also had towels, bottled water, a shaded seating area and an area in the sun, a television, and a server who took our drink and food orders (not included). This was a luxury that we can't afford to do for every day of our trip, or even every trip, but since we weren't headed into a park that day, we found it to be worth what we paid. A little bit of trip business. While we were enjoying the cabana, I got a text that our room was ready. So I went to the room and called for the bags to be delivered. We were in the Fantasy Tower, which is the same tower the lobby is located in. The room was large and had a "parking lot view" but we chose to look over the parking lot and into the Magic Kingdom. I also stopped by the front desk of the hotel and purchased our military discount park tickets. Right in the lobby! If you have ever used the military discount at WDW in Florida, you know it is not an easy process. Tickets have to be purchased and then activated at the park. In California you can buy them in the Disney hotels or buy them at the Disney ticket windows. Very cool! When our cabana time was up, we were ready for bed! I think it was about 10pm east coast time. And we needed our rest because we were hitting the Magic Kingdom first thing the next morning! Continue reading about our journey here.
Read my Pre-Trip Report here. When the day finally arrived for our trip to California, I was ready to get out of Kentucky and into the California sunshine. Rob had been in California for a week with the Air Force, sending daily weather updates. The bags were packed and we were set to go! Except this was your typical stressful non-rev travel day. There is a daily direct flight from CVG to LAX that was showing open seats, but it is never a guarantee. Since I was outnumbered by the kids, I was anxious the whole time that we wouldn't be all together. This isn't the end of the world, they are good flyers. But mommy has a little more relaxing time in the air if I have all my chicks with me. Our travel day was a Sunday and the flight is in the afternoon, which is nice because the kids and I were able to attend Mass, drop off the dog, and take our time getting to the airport. If we didn't make the direct flight, my plan was to fly to SLC, get a hotel, then take an early morning flight to California from there. I don't know if I've shared this, but there is etiquette surrounding non-revving. We dress up and act respectfully (that's a given) but we also try to not talk about waiting for seats in the gate area. This is a challenge for Ryan, who gets anxious about knowing when we will have seats. Our solution has been to come up with a code word. He isn't allowed to ask me if we have seats yet, but he is allowed to ask me if I packed "the code word." For this flight, he was asking if I had "packed the Mickey ears." Luckily, we got three Mickey ears, I mean seats, right next to each other. Woo-hoo! We were off! I didn't have a hotel booked for the first night, because we weren't sure if we would make it. As soon as they turned on the wifi, I got busy looking for a relatively inexpensive (doesn't exist in LA) room for the three of us. I found a room in Anaheim, close to the Disneyland Hotel, with free breakfast. Score! About two minutes after I booked the room, the wifi on the plane went down, never to return. Luck was on my side that flight! Actually, the most stressful part of this journey was the Uber ride from the airport to the hotel. I'm not a seasoned Uber rider, and Rob is usually the one who orders them. The kids have ridden in an Uber once before, in Paris, with Daddy. I know I should be more confident, but being the responsible parent is out of my comfort zone! Of course everything went fine. We had a lovely experience with LA traffic, but besides that, we were soon safely at our hotel. I'll spare you my stress about checking into hotels. Seriously, for a world traveler I have anxiety about almost every step! The plan was for the kids and I to stay in the Anaheim hotel until the next morning, eat the free hotel breakfast, then Uber over to the Disneyland Hotel to meet Rob, who would be arriving from Northern California on a mid-morning flight. Luckily, we were all very tired from traveling. Otherwise we might have been too excited to sleep! Continue reading about our journey here.
It's no secret that we love to go to Disney World. You can read all about some of our previous trips here, here, and here. And we were in the beginning stages of planning a camping trip to WDW for December 2019 when we realized the logistics just weren't going to work out. So when Rob got tasked to spend a week in October out in California, I realized it was the perfect time to cross Disneyland in Anaheim off my bucket list! Rob would be out on the West Coast for the week prior to our homeschool co-op's Fall Break. That meant the kids and I could fly to LAX and Rob could fly down from San Francisco. Before you could say Mickey Mouse, I booked a room at the Disneyland Hotel. Disneyland is very different from WDW. For starters, there are only 3 Disney hotels in California. Yes, there are a ton of non-Disney hotels that are just as close, but I had Disney gift cards and since this was likely our only trip out there I wanted to be IN the Magic. **Spoiler Alert! It was totally worth it and I loved the hotel!** The next difference was in tickets. There are military tickets available, and like Florida, they are a fantastic saving. But unlike Florida, you can buy your military discount tickets right at the resort. And since they use the old FastPass system, there is no need to buy your tickets in advance. I also familiarized myself and the kids with the differences in rides, shows, and dining venues. But California is a lot more relaxed when it comes to Advanced Dining Reservations. In fact, we only made 1 ADR, for a character breakfast on our first park day. And that was it for the planning! Disneyland is supposed to be a much more laid back vacation, and the prep work certainly was. It's a good thing too, because taking a trip over our Fall Break proved to be a very bad time. I was stressed with house stuff ( a flood and a plumber call), school (and field trips) and packing. Good thing I planned something extra special for our first day at the resort. When I just thought I couldn't get through all my to-do items, the thought of my surprise was all that kept me going! Continue reading about our journey here.
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